Acts of Agents and Consultants
by AlternativeRocker
Summary: One shots written for a prompt table. Chapter 4: For the Best.
1. Little Pink Book

**Authors Note: **Written for table H for mentalistprompt community. 'Dear Diary' is the first I'm using for it.

Thanks for the reviews on Not That Girl. :)

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the characters, show or prompt.

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Dear Diary,

What a stupid, cliched way to start. I haven't written in one of these things since I was about ten. It was such a pointless present. James must have realised that when he bought it, he's my brother, how could he not know I wouldn't like it? I don't even know why I opened it, never mind started scribbling in it. He is so like Jane: he always does or buys the most irrelevant things for me. Jane bought me a keyring with a Christmas tree on it, I mean, okay, the horse had a reason behind it but this doesn't. It is the middle of April, not December!

I hate birthdays. I really do. What is the big attraction of being surrounded by more people than necessary just to receive gifts that I probably will not use for the rest of my life. At least Jane brings a bit of fun and surprise to the situations. The rest of the team honestly think I like being fussed over on days like these, they have no idea how wrong they are. It only makes me want to go back to the past when - for one day per child per year - mum and dad would silently agree to not argue or drink and we would have a good time.

I pretend to have fun now and I think Jane can see how little interest I have in the whole farce but he keeps quiet, he knows that the rest of the team get incredibly excited when they can relax more around me. I know I am their boss but it sometimes gets quite lonely because they don't talk to me about their lives since I'm the head bitch and I admittedly am one of the most awkward people to approach about personal issues. It's hard for Jane, he has no one that he can talk to for hours on end about his family with, he understands that I would be willing to listen but that neither of us would actually be comfortable about it; he would ultimately get upset and I don't know how to cope with crying people. I just wish he would get some help. Anything, even if he wrote it down it might be therapeutic because bottling up all the hurt like he does is not helping.

Today has been exhausting because of the fake happiness, the inevitable papercuts from Van Pelt and Cho's tightly wrapped presents and of course another sick, twisted killer that we had to spend our day hunting down. When I said 'we' I obviously meant everyone excluding Jane - he just sat on the couch as usual, sipping tea out of that silly little turquoise cup, yet still manages to beat the rest of us to work out the truth of the case.

Why does time always move so slowly when I just want the day to finish? It feels like I should be going to bed now but I have apparently only been home for a couple of hours. It's times like this that I hate being alone, if there was someone else in here then there would be a chance to have an adult conversation and simply a relationship with someone who didn't think I ruled over their time and life. My job took over everything when I joined, now I have no idea if I'll ever have a proper family; kids haven't always been on my list of wants but time to actually have one is running out and I'm beginning to get a little broody. Yes, the senior agent of a homicide unit wants a tiny little person to get annoyed with. Does my mind really think that a child and Jane are so different, is one not enough to deal with?

This will be the first and last entry I ever make in this pink book. Pink for me? I honestly think he took something before going shopping for this present. Unsurprisingly, Jane has managed to taken up the majority of this page, he manages to weave himself into every single part of my life, I'm getting used to it though. It's sometimes even quite nice for someone to know me better than I occasionally know myself.

It's just Jane's way of playing me. I know that, yet I don't stop it. I never stop him if he's invading my life personally, only work. It's a little odd and disconcerting to say the least.


	2. Behind Bars

**Authors Note: **Sorry, I haven't posted a new part of this in a little while but I do have the next one in the works already. Thanks for the reviews on the first prompt chapter.

**Disclaimer: **Don't own the show or it's characters.

**Prompt:**_ "Now I'm falling in love as she's walking away_ _and my heart won't tell my mind to tell my mouth what it should say" _- As She's Walking Away - Zac Brown Band

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Teresa Lisbon couldn't understand why her brain had persuaded her to visit Jane in prison. She had promised herself when he had been sentenced that she wouldn't set foot in the same room as him again, but here she was.

"So, what do you want?" She shrugged and stared at him through the pane of glass that separated them.

"I wrote to you six months ago, what if it had been important?"

"Jane, you and I have always had very different definitions of the word 'important'. And if it had been vital then you would have found some way to pass the message on. Or escaped." Nothing in her expression told him that she was feeling guilty for ignoring him but he knew that she must have been since she was actually here. Deep down inside his he realised that hearing her voice again was making him regret asking her here altogether. He could hear that she still hated him for the revenge act he had performed - even though he had promised her all along that it would happen one day - and knew that she would continue to hate him for the foreseeable future.

Even though it pained him to remember being able to hear her all day, every day, he desperately wanted her to continue speaking to him so he started asking questions he didn't really care about the answer of, "Why come now then?"

"I was coming to see how many people you have made do your dirty tasks thanks to hypnosis." She continued to fire back these sarcastic quips but not once did any of the humour reach her eyes.

If he could go back in time he would make sure those pretty, deep, green spheres had never bore witness to Red John's last moments. That was the one wish he had for Teresa Lisbon: to forget all about himself and his nemesis so that she could run a normal life and maybe even have settled down. But that was impossible, they were too involved and imbedded in each other now. Excluding the event that had landed him in this prison Lisbon had rubbed some of her rationality and strength on to him, while she had grown a new penchant for bending the rules occasionally and attempted to see every little detail about people from the first seconds she saw them.

"You always assume the worst from me."

"Is it really surprising after what you've put me through since we met?" Lisbon's anger was beginning to show through her well-presented facade and he hated that he was the cause of it. He did not care that he was in the prison, all he truly cared about was the brunette agent who now despised him.

They looked deep into each other's eyes in silence for over two minutes until Jane broke the quiet. Without any hesitation he whispered to her,

"I am sorry." He hadn't intended to apologise today, he knew he should have done it long ago but he simply didn't feel as though he should wreck their day by bringing up that he had never meant to hurt her of all people. But it just slipped out of his mouth without any thought until he heard it out loud.

"Don't bother saying that. If you truly didn't want to hurt me then you wouldn't have even went through with it in the end." She did not have to vocalise what event she was talking about as Jane murdering Red John was the only one she would feel so deeply about.

"I can't stay here any longer. You are even more unbearable than you used to be!" Jane watched as Lisbon stood up, turned away from him and walked towards the door without even turning to say goodbye.

No words. His mouth just wouldn't work. He wanted to shout at her how much she meant to him but not a sound would come through his slightly parted lips. Jane wanted to tell her that he loved her, that she was one of the few reasons he was glad to not have caught up with Red John earlier in his pursuit. He couldn't remember being this speechless in his life; the one time he really wanted to say something meaningful to Lisbon and part of his subconscious was refusing to allow him this one small favour. His heart knew it would only make them both feel worse in the long-term future.

He knew he didn't deserve her and that she would never want a relationship with him but wouldn't it have been better to let her know the whole truth? It would be the only chance he would have yet he couldn't get the words out. And then she was gone from his life once again, this time he knew she wouldn't come back unless there was no other option and nothing would make that happen.


	3. Practice Fire

**Authors Note: **This jumps around a little sicne I wrote it late at night and tried to get inside Lisbon's head. I apologise now if it's that bad. :)

**Prompt:** Gunshot

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything to do with the characters or show.

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Even as a young girl guns being fired had never terrified her as much as thinking of the reason behind the pulling of the trigger did. Having to shoot someone the first time a police cadet had been tougher than expected, she was still bitter over her brother forgetting how much she had cared for them, and at the same time was struggling to find a suitable outlet for the grief over her mother. Whenever she thought back to that period of time she did not know who to be angrier at: herself for not trying harder around family and friends who wanted to comfort her, or the men who kept pushing her to the limit at the Academy, forcing her to leave the depressed orphaned teenager deep down inside.

As the years passed, all the hurt and collapsed lives that she had encountered joined everything else in her, with the hope of escaping with every bullet shot from her weapon. Nothing had panned out how she had envisioned though and as she began to shoot at the immobile targets in the practice range she could feel the pain more than ever before.

The area surrounding Lisbon was empty so letting some sobs out of her would not be witnessed and could not be used against her for further self-destruction. The silence that engulfed her when she had to reload reminded her of how quiet her life was outside of the CBI bullpen. No matter how much her team could infuriate her she was thankful for each of them for bringing different perspectives on life to her own.

The seven years with Jane had been the toughest since losing her mother but it had also brought her the closest thing to a best friend she had ever had. It was obvious she was his most trusted aquaintance but sicne he had saved her life by becoming a killer with a gun he had never once been able to talk about guns not being a helpful addition to a weapon selection, like he had before. That had been the proof in his mind that told him some things were more important than moral duties. That he would fatally wound another human just for Lisbon had surprised the both of them, she never thought she would see him look so vulnerable or holding a recently fired shotgun; nothing that day had made much sense.

Through the tears filling her eye sockets and staining her cheeks she was still an almost perfect shooter. Unconsciously she was continuing to prove to all the people who tried to discourage her from the police that she was more capable than most male agents. The firing range was the nearest thing she had to a place of comfort, she knew how odd it would sound if she told anyone that she felt safer when she could smell the sparks of fire when the trigger was pulled, but it was true.

The guns had never felt uncomfortable in her hand, no matter what type it always seemed natural that she should spend so much time holding one. She preferred smaller handguns since she was not very large herself but she could hit a target well from bigger weapons too.

Jane didn't look right with a gun, even if the one time she had witnessed it she was terrified of a different barrel. Jane did not suit working with the police at all if she was honest; far too clean-cut, blond and with no respect for rules or boundaries. But she couldn't imagine any of it any other way, without Jane she would not have solved half as many cases and simply had had some of the best experiences with him. He was attractive but there was no chance for them, they had learnt too many bad aspects of the other's personality to even consider going any further.

She knew she would have to change her shirt before going back to the CBI, whenever she cried this hard she always feared her team would be able to see the water marks on her clothing although it dried and disappeared completely. To let them see her weaknesses would be the true undoing of her and the sympathy they - especially Van Pelt - would shower her with, would make everyoen less trusting in their senior agent. If they lost their trust in her then her career would be ruined and she would have to find a new way to escape and carry on with her life.

She adjusted the angle of her aim and let a bullet rip through the air molecules in front of Lisbon and go straight into the forehead of the paper man who already had more holes in him that even the most pierced human she had interrogated during her times in small enclosed rooms with failing recorder equipment.

It would be so easy to arrange counselling again through the CBI but after their last encounter with who the company hired as therapists she would rather come out onto the range. Continue to wish she was the bullet waiting for the gunshot that would allow everything to come out at top speed, and have the bad thigns lost in under a second after ridding itself of its shell.


	4. For the Best

**Title:** For the Best  
**Author:** AlternativeRocker  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Jane, Lisbon  
**Summary:** She wishes she knew how some of their talks would end.  
**Notes:** Written for the Paint It Red ficathon and mentalistprompt table.  
**Prompt:** _Those unfinished conversations we used to have still speak to me - With You, from Ghost the Musical _(by tromana) and JOKER prompt that I will make '_prison'_  
**Spoilers:** season 3 finale and mention of scenes from 2x16 'Code Red'

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**For the Best**

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She did not realise until he was actually in prison how much she would miss him. Most of all she longed to know what he had wanted to say to her those times when he got cut off mid-sentence. It had occurred so frequently that they ended up not even noticing when it did take place.

He had messed it all up in the second he took to kill Red John.

In the six months since that murder she had been made far too many excuses so as not to visit Jane that even the rest of her team had began to tell her to go one day. They could all see how much it had pained her when she had heard the news that day and knew it was because he had been on the phone to her just before it happened yet hadn't told her any of his thoughts. There had always been the possibility of his vengeance taking over when it came to the showdown but for it to have taken place like it did was the worst way.

They used to be able to tell how the person was feeling by their eyes but that had never captured their attention as much as saying the words out loud. Their eye contact helped in situations where they silently agreed it was better not to talk, and it worked when they were annoyed at the other person, but it was never as good as the real thing. Lisbon used to take pleasure in the moments when they could be having a discussion and simply stop halfway through since they had seemed to have a connection that let them know what their colleague's mind wanted to say next. She had enjoyed punching him on the nose but regretted it a little because she now wanted to know what he would have said if he had phoned her while dying.

At some point in the past few months she had fell in love with him, she didn't understand how since she had never seen him but that was the way it was. Knowing that she felt this way scared her because there was no chance that they could ever be content in a relationship together, especially now that he was locked up. She assumed that his feelings for his wife and child were exactly the same as they had been before he had pulled that trigger so what was the point in allowing these ideas to form in her brain? Nothing had really changed. It was just like it used to be before he had joined the CBI as a consultant. She hated it now though since she had experienced life with Jane and now he was gone.

Although unsure of the reasoning behind it, she picked up the phone on her desk and used her influence as senior agent to get Jane on to the other end of the line. She wanted to know the reasons behind the act even if she did know it was only because of his family being ripped apart but when it came to speaking she could hardly get a word out, so Jane talked for the most part. He told her all about his plans to hypnotize his fellow inmates and how he thought prison would be a lot worse than what he had anticipated.

A silence erupted between them until Jane built up the courage to say what he had wanted to tell Lisbon for a very long time but had only just admitted to himself: that he felt the same way she did.

"Lisbon, I just wanted to tell you-"

She began to talk so she wouldn't be able to hear the words that had the potential to throw everything up in the air and turn it into something it shouldn't be.

"Don't Jane, please."

Her words haunted her as soon as they had abandoned her lips.

She wished one of their conversations had been stopped by a kiss. Just once. Moments like that weren't going to happen at all so she imagined it all now. Daydreaming was not a productive sport but it was a way to pretend nothing had altered. It was almost a protective barrier from the fact that she would never allow him to be that close again.

The years of broken up discussions played back in her mind just as they always had. The endings of them would never be known and somewhere inside of her, Lisbon knew that it was sensible thing to do.


End file.
